Deeplinks Blog posts about Social Networks

Kuwait’s Information Minister, Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, announced last week that Kuwait plans to pass new laws regulating the use of social networking sites such as Twitter in order to “safeguard the cohesiveness of the population and society.” The Information Minister’s announcement reflects growing panic over comments in social media deemed to incite the mounting sectarian tension between Sunnis and Shi’ites throughout the region.

At first blush, it seems obvious that a picture could reveal your location. A picture of you standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge sensibly leads to the conclusion you're in the San Francisco Bay Area when the photo was taken. But now that smartphones are quickly supplanting traditional digital cameras, and even traditional cameras now have wifi built in, many more pictures are finding their way onto the web, in places like Twitter, Flickr, Google+ and Tumblr.

Numerous commentators have noted the sore thumb in the group of supporters for The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA): Facebook. Why would a social network be endorsing a bill that would allow companies to pass personal information about Internet users to the government without any form of judicial oversight? A number of recent articles have discussed the issue, and already one digital rights group has launched a campaign to convince Facebook to drop support of the bill.

Facebook has been a popular place for Syrian Internet activists to share their opposition to the Assad regime ever since the site was unblocked by the Syrian government in early 2011. While some interpreted the Assad regime's decision to allow access to Facebook as a positive sign, others feared that the government had made Facebook available for the purpose of entrapping Syrian activists.

Two weeks ago, Gawker’s Adrian Chen published a leaked copy of Facebook’s Operations Manual for Live Content Moderators, which the company uses to implement the rules and guidelines that determine which content will be allowed on the platform. The document was widely ridiculed for a variety of reasons, from the attitudes expressed toward sex and nudity (photos containing female nipples are banned, as is any “blatant (obvious) depiction of camel toes or moose knuckles”), to its lenient attitude towards gore (crushed heads and limbs are permitted “so long as no insides are showing”), to its arbitrary ban on photos depicting drunk, unconscious, or sleeping people with things drawn on their faces.